Communion is the body and blood ONLY of Jesus. His body was broken, and His blood shed for the remission of sins ONLY. Nowhere does Scripture tell us of the soul and divinity of Christ in communion. That is actually a New Age false teaching for it can only make us into "little christ's" which a few false teachers teach and lead astray with today. Jesus Himself warned us of this in Matthew 24:24.

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (cf. 3:3: "unless a man is born again ...")

This has always been a mystery to me about Protestants: If you can take in what appears in the Bible as infallible (which many Protestants do so quite sincerely) in historical fact as well as in spirit -- which should be more important because of the lessons God teaches us through many of the facts -- why is it so difficult to take that one step forward on faith in Jesus very own words about himself, the bread he spoke about, and of course the entire Holy Thursday portion of John's Gospel?

And be done with it!

All of these intellectual hurdles, hoops, minefields, hypothetical musings, arguments, mental shouting matches, and intellectual football games within one's mind, heart and soul simply cannot be sustained by any person for a long time without leaving an individual simply worn out. whew!   Now, I'll admit what you just read was a long sentence. But I made it very long for a purpose, to demonstrate in many respects what so many of us do when it comes to understanding and appreciating the Eucharist for all that It is to us.

The Eucharist is far more than any It that ever occupied a portion of this world. The Eucharist is God for us to take Him fully--in body and soul-- into ourselves in the most personal and understandable way possible Jesus could've designed. (Yet, even when he first broached the concept, what he said still few right over the heads of those who left him. (Jn 6)

Some very ingenuous Protestant evangelicals came up with a warm means of explaining the benefits of inviting Christ into our lives by getting us to imagine inviting him to come into our homes and taking up residence. They'd offer a narrative description of the house, etc. and how the Lord could make himself at home. Ironically enough, though, the more Protestants strive to reinvent, "upgrade" (a new twist within evangelical  circles) and who knows what else to accomplish the same level of both spiritual and physical intimacy we have with Christ--the further they've slid behind or off the path. With respects to how they approach the Eucharist, most of them sure have found ways to prove one of their battle cries "faith alone and not by works" is right on the mark when it comes to accepting the very essence of the Eucharist.

And such efforts remind me of people back during the moon launches who wanted badly to believe we landed up there, but didn't, nevertheless, they were willing to buy into the "urban legend" mother of all loopy conspiracy theories--after the Saturn V lifted off, the capsule landed in some isolated spot, the astronauts were then taken to a hollywood-type studio and voila! Man's up near the moon, if not on it. If people still want to buy into that, they can also buy a side order of fiction written by Dan Brown about Jesus fathering a child by Mary Magdalen. (And, if they're really lucky, they even get to see two movies on the same subjects, respectively, with Tom Hanks in both.)

What St. Paul said about God using illogic to confound the so-called logical and pragmatic people into finally seeing what our faith is all about (esp. insofar as it centers dead-on the Eucharist) was as true 2000 years ago as it remains today with many skeptics ranging from New Agers to evangelical Protestants. It's not theological rocket science. Jesus tried very hard to keep it simple. But only the smarties of his day couldn't get the message very quickly, much less at all for the most unfortunate ones who heard him preach and in essence, spiritually "blew it" for all time: literally.

My suggestion: the Catechism, the Bible, and a willingness to suspend all intellectual claims against the concept of the Real Presence. All of 'em. Clear the deck, wash it down and put on new wax. Then start anew with no preconceptions and let Christ do the teaching through the Catechism, Scripture and a very loving and sincere teacher who'll make it as simple and inviting as possible. 

No theological hypotheticals, gobbledygook, etc.

Just the two major playbooks and a great coach. And, of couse, the student's willingness to listen with an equal amount of love for the Subject At Hand.

That way we won't have as many people saying "Rome, we have a ....

(PS: Chances are somebody in the Vatican Control Center will automatically send my SOS back to a receiving station in Michigan, Louisiana or very Deep in the Bottom of Texas.)

Last edited on Wed May 28th, 2008 10:15 pm by Steven Barrett